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Current Affairs

01/31/2018

The ratings crashed. Is that any reason for The New York Times to dump on Los Angeles?

For years, The New York Times has been railing at the West Coast city, castigating its sprawl, its laid-back lifestyle, its perceived lack of culture.

Now, The New York Times has struck again, claiming that turmoil of its fellow newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, somehow marks a lack of civic cohesiveness in Los Angeles. The article weakly supports this vague claim.

If only Los Angeles had tabloids, it would match New York's brilliance, The New York Times absurdly says. I didn't realize the New York Post builds civic unity.

The New York Times, ignoring that it represents the city of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, blasts a Los Angeles strength: the diversity of its multiple neighborhoods.

I've been reading such stories in The New York Times for years, as Los Angeles has revitalized its downtown, gained new museums, produced dynamic literature, music and theater and created diverse ethnic cuisines.

The New York Times' claims are flimsy at best. This week, United Airlines acquired naming rights to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in a 16-year, $69 million deal connected to Los Angeles receiving the 2028 Olympics. The successful Olympics bid indicates Los Angeles' corporate vitality.

Along with receiving the Olympics, Los Angeles showed its civic cohesiveness with its proposal to Amazon for a second headquarters. LA was the only California city named one of Amazon's 20 finalists.

While The Los Angeles Times has suffered cutbacks following declining circulation and ad revenue, the newspaper still gives a vital voice to the sprawling metropolitan area. The Los Angeles paper has nearly matched its New York counterpart in the number of Pulitzers won in recent years. Writers like restaurant critic Jonathan Gould and sports columnist Bill Plaschke produce excellent work, and the Los Angeles Times outdoes The New York Times in its coverage of TV, the movies and music.

The New York Times has a dubious reputation for "trend" stories whose evidence doesn't support their grand premises. The Los Angeles piece is another glaring example.

01/30/2018

Urbanist Richard Florida in a Wall Street Journal piece this week excoriated mayors and governors for offering Jeff Bezos and Amazon huge incentives to land the company's second headquarters.

A piece on the sports/pop culture site Deadspin called for laws against such inducements. Florida and other critics have called for officials to reach a pact against promising corporations exorbitant tax breaks and infrastructure benefits.

Amazon recently named 20 cities as finalists for the second headquarters, which the company says will bring 50,000 jobs to the lucky city. Although the tax cuts and infrastructure expenses to land Amazon will crimp public budgets, Amazon's promised $5 billion investment had cities in a frenzy to top each other.

Florida pointed out that Toronto, where he lives, made the top 20 list without offering the outlandish tax incentives proposed by the other 19 finalists, all in the United States. Florida said that Toronto's inclusion on the list shows that Bezos, the world's wealthiest man, will make the headquarters decision based on business considerations, no matter what benefits are offered.

Amazon choose the golden 20 from 218 cities that originally gave proposals. Left-out cities included high-tech and new-economy stars like San Francisco, San Diego, Charlotte, Louisville and San Jose. The cities shunned by Amazon gave the company free economic development information that could still be used for business decisions, as The New York Times pointed out in an article this week.

That information could prove invaluable for Amazon in making future decisions such as where to place a warehouse or new Whole Foods supermarket or bookstore. On Tuesday, the company announced a health-care initiative for its employees in conjunction with Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan. While a city like Louisville didn't make the second headquarters cut, it might prove perfect for an Amazon medical office or hospital under the new health program.

The intense reaction to Amazon's plan shows that officials are unlikely to follow Florida's admonishments. Whether Democrats or Republicans, officials see Amazon and other corporations as economic messiahs exempt from sharing in the public commitment to pay taxes.

01/29/2018

Has the Los Angeles Times management surrendered to the newspaper's staff or will the Tronc Corp. crack down further?

After weeks of turmoil, Tronc on Monday named Jim Kirk as the new editor in chief of the economically troubled Times. Kirk replaces Lewis D'Vorkin, called the "prince of darkness" in a recent Columbia Journalism Review article. Kirk, who previously held the title for a brief time, is the third top editor in the last six months.

D'Vorkin sparked a staff revolt with his cost-cutting and abrasive style. The staff a couple of weeks ago voted overwhelmingly to join the national News Guild-Communications Workers union, a first for the newspaper known for its anti-union philosophy dating back to the Chandler family's fabled ownership of the paper. In the midst of the union campaign, the newspaper's former publisher was suspended as the result of sexual harassment allegations.

Newsroom agitation flared anew when the staff learned about D'Vorkin's clandestine hiring of an editorial management team whose positions had not been announced. D'Vorkin's shadow editors, duplicating functions of those already working for the newspaper, were hired to develop content that would be shared by other Tronc newspapers, according to national reports. The company also owns the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and New York Daily News.

The Times workers feared that in response to the union vote, D'Vorkin's editors would hire non-union staffers to replace them.

With Kirk' replacing D'Vorkin, the status of the duplicate editorial team remains unclear. Perhaps like other newspaper companies, Tronc will set up a centralized copy desk to handle editing functions for all of the company's newspapers. Or, the newspaper staff's union-busting fears might be correct.

Times readers hope the corporate moves don't bring further cutbacks in the newspaper's coverage. With a 1,000-person staff in the heyday of the Chandlers' reign, the Times stood among the nation's newspaper elite along with The New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and Wall Street Journal. Now with a staff of 400, the Los Angeles newspaper still strongly covers national and local news, although its once vital foreign coverage has declined.

The newspaper's future remains endangered by declining circulation and advertising weakness. Perhaps Tronc can find a benign buyer to bring the newspaper a new era, as Amazon's Jeff Bezos did with The Washington Post.

New Orleans artist Jeff Morgan was commissioned by the newspaper to complete the portrait of Bolden shown at left. Morgan is associated with Where Y'art, whose artists will do other portraits for the series.

As the article relates, Bolden's legendary career is shaded with mystery. A few intriguing facts are known, with the rest consigned to legend.

A cornet player, composer and band-leader in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Bolden played a major role in creating jazz, blending elements of the blues, marching band numbers, American parlor songs and European classical music. His band drew big crowds to stifling dance halls, and he reputedly attracted other listeners by blowing his horn through an open window.

After Bolden gained immense popularity in New Orleans, his career tragically ended in 1907 when he was committed to the state mental institution after some kind of psychotic breakdown. He never regained his freedom, dying in the hospital in 1930. Rumors abound that he continued playing his coronet, possibly with the mental institution's band.

Bolden was known for the song "Funky Butt," referring to the rank body odors of the crowds at his performances. The tune, with references to Bolden's career, was later recorded by Jelly Roll Morton as "Buddy Bolden's Blues." Bolden and his band might have made one wax cylinder recording, which has never been found. The search is like that for the Holy Grail.

Bolden's life was the subject of Michael Ondaatje's poignant novel "Coming Through Slaughter," and Don Marquis examined what's known about Bolden's life in "The Search for Buddy Bolden."

After his death at the mental institution in Jackson, La., Bolden was buried in an unmarked grave in New Orleans' Holt Cemetery. A monument honoring Bolden was placed in the cemetery a few years ago, but his grave was never found.

His music lives on through generation after generation of New Orleans jazz musicians. Armstrong will come later in the newspaper's series, but Bolden was the one who lit the flame.

Recently diagnosed with a serious disease, or perhaps it's his hypochondria, Ritter spends the hours thinking about the connections between Western culture and the Mideast.

He's obsessed with European concepts of "the other" and "alterity." This leads him into imagined conversations with Thomas Mann, Wagner, and Edward Said.

Ritter's sardonic doctor, who sounds like a holdover from the Third Reich, has refused to give Ritter a prescription for his beloved opium. Guess there's no Ambien in Vienna.

During the slow progression toward sunrise, Ritter uncovers the contributions made by Persian and Arabic composers, writers and artists to Western art, literature and music. Ritter with his encyclopedic knowledge expresses belief in a unified human civilization.

While Ritter's dazzling intellectual flights give a challenging education in European and Islamic culture, the novel's essential beauty comes from his recollections of journeys to Mideastern places.

Ritter's recollections of travels with a European coterie of "Orientalists" reveal a cosmopolitan world of conversation, music, food and love. He recalls the grace and richness of Aleppo, recently devastated by the Syrian civil war, and a visit to the ancient ruins of Palmyra, destroyed by Isis before the Sunni group's defeat. Istanbul and Tehran also glow in beauty and sensual pleasures before the rise of repressive Islamic leaders.

The book's most heartbreaking sequence describes how the Iranian revolution's promise of democracy and freedom after the shah's downfall was thwarted by the Ayatollah Khomeni's reactionary regime.

While Ritter's cultural digressions resemble an intellectual treatise, "Compass" dazzles as a novel brimming with fully imagined set pieces and memorable secondary characters.

The primary unifying story comes from Ritter's lamentations about his lost love for a beguiling woman named Sarah, also an academic excited by connections among different cultures. As the night stretches on, Ritter muses over his failed relationship with her. A spiritual searcher, Sarah has left her home in Paris to explore primitive cultures in Malaysia after a period seeking Buddhist enlightenment.

Ritter recalls a series of interactions with Sarah through the years, ranging from Mideastern excursions and academic conferences to her romantically thwarted visits to Vienna. The relationship between them ranges from romantic tenderness to the excitement of shared ideas to slapstick comedy. With all of his erudition and cultural perceptiveness, Franz is amazingly obtuse about Sarah. The novel closes on a beautiful, ambiguous interchange between the two, showing that love letters will maintain their power in the age of email.

Edward Said's influential treatise "Orientalism" is a touchstone of "Compass." The storytelling structure of "A Thousand and One Nights" is another talisman, along with Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past." Ritter's voice also recalls that of Camus' solitary first-person narrator in "The Fall."

While questions of accuracy recently rose in Deborah Smith's translation of South Korean novelist Han Kong's "The Vegetarian," Mandell rendered Énard's original French with exactitude and artistic brilliance. Énard's long, meandering sentences register in English with the exquisite beauty of their original language. A description of Istanbul's waterfront as seen through a window during an early evening gathering combined poetic musicality with visual precision.

Énard's demands on the reader are rewarded with aesthetic power and intellectual enrichment. Moments of hope and beauty break through clouds of despair and sorrow. Flashes of black-tinged humor lighten the mood. While I at times felt disoriented as if lost in a labyrinth, Énard's compass had a true direction.

moments of hope and beauty breaking through clouds of despair and sorrow. While I at times felt disoriented as if lost in a labyrinth,

01/18/2018

Amazon has chosen Atlanta among its 20 finalists for the company's second headquarters.

The finalist list was culled from 238 cities that sent proposals to Jeff Bezos' online retail giant, which says the lucky winner will receive a $5 billion investment and 50,000 new jobs. Amazon last year announced plans to establish a second headquarters outside of its home in Seattle.

Along with Atlanta, the South was represented on the list by Nashville, Miami and Raleigh-Durham. Although it looks like a dark horse, the North Carolina tech center is considered a top contender by at least one publication.

Columbus, Ohio, was another surprise selection, although Ohio State gives the home of Wendy's hamburgers and the hometown of James Thurber and Jack Nicklaus a highly educated and industrious work force.

As with other finalist cities, the selection of Columbus would boost its surrounding region, from Cleveland to Cincinnati. Outside of its dynamic and growing state capital, Ohio like other "rust belt" states has suffered years of economic decline.

A similar Midwestern city, Indianapolis, also made the list. Indianapolis is close to Bloomington, home of Indiana University.

Heavyweights named include New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver and Toronto. Newark also made the list, and its selection would benefit New York City. Montgomery County, Md., and Northern Virginia, both in the Washington area, were also selected.

Although Nashvillle is four hours away from Atlanta, requiring climbing over a mountain, its selection would also help Atlanta, as would Durham-Raleigh. The size of Amazon's investment would have a regional impact that would reach down I-85 from the home of Duke and N.C. State and I-75 from Nashville. Chattanooga would be happy with the selection of either Nashville or Atlanta.

Los Angeles was the only West Coast city named, with San Francisco, San Diego and Palo Alto shunned. Nor did Bezos know the way to San Jose.

Dallas and Austin made the list, but not Houston. Nor did New Orleans, seen as a dark horse by some before the final cut. Detroit, reportedly undergoing a fitful recovery, was also left out.

The January announcement might disrupt the Georgia Legislature's schedule. Earlier, Gov. Nathan Deal said a special session would be the best way to come up with a package of incentives and infrastructure improvements to entice Amazon to Atlanta. Now, the Legislature might not be able to wait, but have to take action during the current session.

Gee, the Legislature might have to do some work in the first weeks of the session, rather than focusing most of its attention on beauty queens and high school sports champions. The Legislature does most of its business in the frenzied final weeks, when special interests benefit from hastily written legislation that receives less scrutiny during the rush. Giving attention to Amazon would require the Legislature to spread out its workload.

The possibility of Atlanta receiving Amazon might also put "religious liberty" bills in the deep freeze.

The Amazon announcement could also influence the Georgia governor's race, with the final city expected to be named this year. When that happens has not been reported, but if not done before November, gubernatorial candidates will seek to top each other making pledges to the company.

As Amazon made its announcement, Apple said it will also seek a second headquarters, although with fewer jobs. Atlanta was immediately mentioned as a contender for Apple.

Those tax concessions keep mounting. The poor teachers will never get a raise.

01/16/2018

Denis Johnson, one of the last voices of the American macho literature of drifters, redeemed junkies and desolation angels, was hailed as one of the country's finest writers when he died last May at age 67.

Johnson's posthumous collection, "The Largesse of the Sea Maiden," is drawing the kind of critical attention usually given to heralded novels.

Exhibiting nostalgia for the minimalistic style and outlaw visions of a range of writers from Hemingway to Jack Kerouac and Johnson's mentor Raymond Carver, Garner says that Johnson's final collection is a long-awaited sequel to his heralded "Jesus' Son," which has gained renown as an American classic.

While Garner sees "The Largesse of the Sea Maiden" as falling short of "Jesus' Son," he finds that it achieves a similar mastery of language, symbolism and character.

Johnson achieved success in a range of genres, including plays, poems and novels. His novel "Tree of Smoke" won the National Book Award and was a Pulitzer finalist.

Yet, with "Jesus' Son," and now "The Largesse of the Sea Maiden," Johnson like Carver, John Cheever and John O'Hara appears one of those writers who will be best known for his short stories.

His narratives about unsuccessful men seeking consolation in life's common beauties seem out of step with Trump's tawdry gilded age.

The stories reveal the constant American reality of people struggling to get by with little more than unrealized dreams and bittersweet memories. And their enduring voices.

01/15/2018

As Donald Trump spends the MLK holiday golfing yet again at Mar-A-Lago, I recalled Nick Carraway's final cry of disgust in "The Great Gatsby."

"It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

Substitute Trump for "Tom and Daisy," and F. Scott Fitzgerald perfectly summarizes Trump's derelict presidency. Trump makes messes like his rash tweets and derogatory comments about Haiti and Africa, then lets other people do the clean up. Those he maligns scream in outrage, but he lumbers onward, putter in hand. His GOP minions lamely cover for him. As Trump golfs and tweets and wolfs down his Big Macs, his cabinet members, aides and rich special interests ravage the country.

Still, after Trump's comments, I was surprised at how easily news networks repeated Trump's vulgarity. And how newspapers like The New York Times seemed eager to use it in print. The word doesn't offend me, but the quick abandonment of editorial standards was disturbing. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow appeared the media person most reluctant to speak the word.

After Trump's sneer about African and Haitian immigrants, I thought about how many people from Africa cared for me when I was at Grady Hospital last year. A conscientious young nurse from Ethiopia. A brassy nurse from Nigeria. The Cat Scan technician from Kenya. A few others.

While Trump golfs with his pals and uses the presidency to enrich himself by selling overpriced memberships to his second-tier club (classy clubs like Augusta National wouldn't have him as a member), immigrants from Africa and other countries do the jobs that keep the country going day by day.

As Trump golfs and talks with his GOP buddies about how to destroy Dreamers' dreams, folks from Mexico, Haiti, Africa and other countries go to work.

01/11/2018

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal says he'll call a special legislative session to dole out $1 billion in state enticements if Atlanta is a finalist for Amazon's second headquarters.

The package would include transportation improvements. A bit late for Amazon I would think. Expanding MARTA and improving roads would take years. Georgia will have a difficult time overcoming its long history of neglecting mass transit.

To Deal and other deluded Georgia officials who think Atlanta has a shot with Amazon, I have a few words.

Boston. New York City. Washington, D.C. Denver. San Francisco.

They've already have transportation systems, admittedly a big decrepit after years of GOP low-tax neglect.

The state of Georgia wants to give $1 billion to a man recently named the richest in history. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is now worth $105 billion, according to media reports.

Lt. Gov. and gubernatorial candidate Casey Cagle claims the Amazon plan for a $5 billion complex and 50,000 jobs is the largest economic deal in history, according to The AJC.

Get a grip, Casey. This country has built an interstate highway system, a continental railroad, and dug the Erie Canal. The present Congress can't even fix an airport or two.

Corporations have been building plants and headquarters in American cities for 200 years. The world underwent an industrial revolution, and inventions and new innovations have steadily progressed. The U.S. has had capitalists like John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie.

As Ring Lardner would say, "Shut up, he explained."

Without the Amazon distraction, the legislators can focus on other pressing issues, Deal says.

Like the leak in the Mercedes-Benz stadium roof?

Donald Trump at the college football championship game in Atlanta the other night was seen talking with Falcons owner Arthur Blank. Maybe Trump was recommending a carpenter who could fix the roof.

Blank, who received millions from the state for his stadium now known for long security lines thanks to Trump, probably thanked the president for that billion-dollar tax cut. And assured the great orange one that he's against government handouts.